Steve in Dennis, Massachusetts, remembers a cartoon that showed a boy trying to persuade a donkey to pull a cart by holding out a carrot suspended from a stick. Is that the origin of the expression carrot and stick? The original metaphor involved...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle inspired rhyming terms with the eee-aww, eee-aww, eee-aww sounds of police sirens. For example, what sound does a donkey make? This is part of a complete episode.
A man who owns a parrot says that when people see his bird, they invariably ask the question “Polly wanna cracker?” He wonders about the origin of that psittacine phrase, meaning parrot-like. One of the earliest uses of the phrase so far...
dirt diving n.— «Tucked away on a long driveway, just after a donkey farm, is Vermont Skydiving Adventures (VSA).…Last Friday, four regulars were “dirt diving,” the term for practicing maneuvers on the ground. They were planning on...
shock and hee-haw n.— «The surge really has accomplished a reduction in the violence, and things are safer. But convoys are still being hit by the IEDs and the vehicle-borne IEDs. They’re even putting explosive devices under satchels on...
flake n.— «The donkeys are inexpensive to keep. They eat a flake of hay a day and a Campbell’s soup tin of grain.» —“ These downtown professionals have made rural dreams a reality” by Donna Jean MacKinnon Toronto...